Traffic engineers have long been faced with the problem of how to properly size traffic networks in order to fully accommodate the required demand with minimal blocking. In the telecommunications industry, network sizing has historically been performed with reference to the "busy hour" which is a statistical creation having varying definitions in the art. Among them, the CCITT-Q.80 defines a mean busy hour as "the average busy hour traffic on the thirty busiest days of the year." In contrast, the North American standard averages only the ten busiest days of the year. Using this criteria, traffic engineers have designed networks to accommodate predetermined blocking percentages, i.e., one percent, etc. during the "busy hour." As readily seen, designers are thus either over building telecommunications networks or insuring excess capacity during off-peak times.
As an example, consider sizing interstate highway systems for a one percent chance of encountering a traffic jam during the ten busiest rush hours of the year. Certainly, there would be extra highway capacity during the off-peak times. Indeed, to accommodate the rush hour traffic, roads which could normally operate with two lanes might be required to have ten to twenty lanes in order to accommodate such rush hour traffic during the "busy hour."
The same is the case with telecommunication networks. FIG. 1 of the drawings is a representation of the estimated traffic intensity (mixed business and residential) over a typical working day in the United States.
Present telecommunication networks, however, make no attempt to flatten out the "busy hour" bulges of the typical working day. Instead, they are designed to uniformly accommodate a predetermined blocking percentage which results in over building as identified above. While this approach has, to date, been successful in the United States and many westernized countries, it is clearly wasteful of resources and is not suitable for application in less technologically advanced countries. Consider, for example, many Eastern European countries which have limited telephone service provided through an antiquated incumbent telephone network. The quickest and least expensive way to improve telephone service in these countries and provide the same to the masses is through the use of wireless telephone systems. These systems, however, must nonetheless be routed through the existing land-based network which, in most cases, is incapable of handling the surge of use which would result.
Thus, the only way to improve telephone service in these countries is to correspondingly update the incumbent telephone network or control the traffic routed therethrough. In contrast to telephone networks presently operable in the United States and many westernized countries which are egalitarian in nature, i.e., provide telephone service to all users at all times, new telephone networks could be designed with sufficient cost disincentives so as to control traffic during the "busy hour" and reduce the need for costly network modifications.
Consequently, a need exists for a method and system of controlling traffic in selected links of Public Switched Telephone Networks through the use of variable price incentives.